About ASDP

The Asian Studies Development Program (ASDP) is a joint initiative of the East-West Center and the University of Hawai’i . Since 1991, ASDP has contributed significantly to the expansion of undergraduate Asian studies instruction and the establishment of certificate, minor and major degree programs in Asian studies at 2-year and 4-year colleges and universities that focus on teaching rather than research. The ASDP mission has been to provide teaching faculty with resources for infusing critically-framed and competently-delivered Asian studies content into undergraduate humanities and social sciences courses, and to provide ongoing support for institutionally-relevant Asian studies program development.

With over twenty years of experience, ASDP has developed a highly effective model of faculty and curriculum development through content-focused programs that bring together nationally and internationally recognized Asia scholars and exemplary undergraduate teachers in multi-disciplinary, seminar-like communities of inquiry. Since its inception, ASDP has hosted 49 residential institutes in Hawai’i (3 to 5 weeks in duration), 23 field seminars in East and Southeast Asia (2 to 5 weeks), and 114 workshops and conferences (2 to 3 days), attended by more than 4,000 college and university professors and administrators across the country. Twenty colleges and universities across the U.S. have been designated ASDP Regional Centers, and have assumed mentoring roles for other schools in their geographical region that are committed to infusing Asian content into the undergraduate core curriculum.